A team comprised of staff from the Office of the President of the UN General Assembly, the UN-NGLS New York Office, and the Department of General Assembly Conference Management (DGACM) were honored on United Nations Staff Day 2016 as UN Secretary-General Staff Award finalists, for work together on the process for the selection of the next UN Secretary-General. The team was recognized in the category "Managing Change" for achieving "an unprecedented standard of transparency and inclusivity for the process," building on a mandate provided by UN Member States to the President of the General Assembly. We extend our highest respect to President of the 70th Session of the General Assembly Mr. Mogens Lykketoft, and President of the 71st Session of the General Assembly Ambassador Peter Thomson for their principled leadership in this regard. We thank UN Member States for their support of a more transparent and inclusive process which included civil society.

We are grateful to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, the UN Department of Management, and the review committee of UN staff from around the world for the recognition of the process, and to Ms. Jaspreet Kindra from the UN Office of the Special Advisor on Africa for nominating the "The Next SG Project" team members below for the Secretary-General Staff Award.

UN-NGLS New YorkMs. Susan Alzner, Head of OfficeMr. David Lonnberg, Office Coordination SpecialistMs. Mareike Eberz, Associate Expert on Sustainable Development

DGACMMr. Georg Zeiner, Political Affairs Officer

UN-NGLS New York thanks the Office of the President of the General Assembly and DGACM for the opportunity to be a part of such an extraordinary team working on this historic process. We congratulate and extend our highest respect to all of the UN staff recognized as finalists and award recipients in the 4 categories Managing Change, Greening the UN, Courage, and Collegiality: http://www.un.org/en/hq/dm/sgawards_finalists

The full 2016 UN Secretary-General Staff Awards Ceremony can be viewed here.

A short clip during the ceremony presenting the Next SG Project can be viewed here:

Full information on the process to select the 9th UN Secretary-General is available on the President of the General Assembly's web site: http://www.un.org/pga/71/sg/

We congratulate His Excellency Mr. Antonio Guterres on his recent appointment as the 9th United Nations Secretary-General, and extend our respect to all of the candidates in the historic selection process.

UN-NGLS NY sees the 2016 UN Staff Award finalist honor for the process in part as a celebration of the value of civil society participation at the UN. We received more than 1500 unique questions from more than 100 countries for the candidates through an open call for submissions. We facilitated a diverse, regionally and gender balanced civil society Selection Committee to create short-lists, from which the President of the General Assembly selected 2-3 questions to ask each of the candidates. Learn more about the process, see all questions asked of the candidates + their responses, and the list of civil society Selection Committee members here:https://unngls.org/index.php/80-home/2746-unsg-candidates

We express our great appreciation to everyone who submitted questions, and to the Selection Committee members for contributing their time, expertise, and a collegial spirit to this process.

We are also grateful to:

- the UN Communications Group, UN Social Media teams across the system, UN Radio, civil society partners, and media outlets that promoted the call for questions extensively across the world. See a 100+ page document of social media and media activity here.

- UN Conference Services for going the extra mile on technical support for playing the video questions at each UN General Assembly dialogue with the candidates.

- UN A/V Library and UN WebTV for providing videos of the UN General Assembly dialogues, enabling us to edit short segments of the civil society questions for sharing.

- Al Jazeera Media for their kind collaboration on the inclusion of civil society questions during the Global Townhall broadcast event.

- Human Condition for their donation of tech and design services to help us build the web platform that enabled civil society to submit their questions from around the world.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and the team at the Office of the President of the General Assembly have been exceptionally supportive of civil society engagement at the UN. We look forward to continuing to work with them and the full UN System to build the constructive relationship between the UN and civil society by facilitating open, transparent and accountable processes to ensure inclusive, diverse, and balanced participation in meaningful engagement opportunities.

The UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UN-NGLS) is an inter-agency programme of the United Nations mandated to develop constructive relations between the UN and civil society organizations.